Chasing the Divine in the Holy Land (5 page)

“A week of silent retreat at a monastery in Belgium. Didn't speak a word the whole week, and at supper every night a monk set a stein of beer in front of me — and a hunk of this delicious white cheese.”

“So you're saying religious experience comes down to menu?”

He nods. “Beats words, anyway.”

While the bus lurches along, Stephen gets on a microphone and supplies background facts, which I dutifully record. In the nineteenth century
BCE
, Jerusalem originated as the city of Salem, possibly named after a pre-biblical god of peace. Its other name, Zion, is from the Hebrew
tsia,
meaning “thirsty” or “dry.” This is a desert city built over a water source.

At Mount Scopus, our first destination, it takes ten minutes for the group to disembark. Somehow I didn't think a pilgrimage would involve quite so many people moving quite so slowly. Facing east, we look across to the West Bank of the Jordan River. Two types of architecture are noticeable, even from a distance. The utilitarian high-rises are Palestinian housing, while the picturesque red-tiled roofs belong to an Israeli settlement. I study this, grateful that someone has given me the eyes to comprehend what I'm seeing. In the distance is the Rift Valley, which stretches south to the Dead Sea, its lowest spot. Someone asks about deserts, and Stephen refers to three of them: the Judean desert, which surrounds Jerusalem; the Negev to the south; and beyond that, the Sinai. All three deserts are hilly, with different levels of vegetation and rainfall. The Judean desert has the most plant life. Looking at the scrubby growth, I see that a desert is more than a pile of sand. I haven't paid enough attention to the
different deserts and wilderness in Scripture, ignorantly picturing them all as wasteland.

We turn west, facing Jerusalem, and then look to the south, at King David's City. This is a small archaeological site outside Jerusalem's southern wall, which once contained the original spring. “Notice the water,” Stephen says, with his weighted voice. I crane to look for the water, but all that's visible is dust and stone. Someone asks about how the water is routed now, but I have reached saturation on talk about this Holy Land. I'm like a thirsty kid touring the Hoover Dam; I just want to find a fountain.

I glance over my shoulder and notice an olive tree right behind me. I casually back up, then slip underneath the tree's branches. I can hear Stephen talking, saying things I should write down, facts that a preacher should know. But I've never seen an olive tree before. The branches are dense with leaves, the little olives tight and green. I imagine Jesus sitting beneath an olive tree exactly like this one. What did he think about when he looked at olives on a branch? I wish he were here right now. A pair of sparrows fly among the branches. The words of Jesus come to me: “Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.” I stay enveloped by the olive tree while Stephen continues to talk. Look at the birds of the air. They neither lecture nor listen nor take copious notes, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.

Eventually I slip out of the tree's embrace. Stephen is pointing out Jerusalem's Golden Gate with its double arch, now sealed, and he gives its history. For the first time I notice a cemetery spread below us. It's unlike any cemetery I know. There are rows and rows of stone boxes standing on the sand. Each stone box is littered with smaller stones. Everything is dirty beige. It looks like a good wind scrubbed the whole place down to rock, and then the dirty sand drifted in and coated everything again. Maybe everything in Jerusalem is dirt-colored like this, and it will seem perfectly normal in a day or two. I've heard that Jerusalem is the color of milk and honey, a thousand beautiful hues of gold. But
the descriptive word that comes to my mind is much harsher: hardscrabble.

I am personally acquainted with cemeteries, having lived next door to one in rural Illinois. I sometimes chased cattle who knew to hide behind headstones when the fence broke down. At one funeral where I officiated, an elder explained why all the graves face east: the better to greet Jesus when he returns. After that I liked to picture the scene described in 1 Corinthians 15: angels blasting on trumpets, bodies lifting from graves, pink-tinged clouds forming a throne for Jesus, the whole scene shot through with rays of light, anchored to earth by the rich green of grass. Could my imagination set that triumphant scene here just as well? No grass, no cows, no headstones, no flowers — just littered stone boxes. But Jesus is here, too, of course. Even in a Jewish cemetery. Perhaps especially in a Jewish cemetery. These graves face west, not east, I calculate, since they face the Holy City. They would be prime seats for the Second Coming.

Stephen's voice brings me back to the present. He's talking about the cemetery. “You can be buried here today, but it'll cost you $10,000.” I don't intend to pay $10,000 for a plot, not today, and not when my time comes. I look again for the sparrows in the olive tree. Birds of the air don't have that kind of money, either.

“Notice the small stones atop the graves. These are tokens of respect placed by visitors, like flowers. A stone is the first fruit of the desert.” When I digest this fact, the graves no longer look littered, but ornamented. Once again I've been given eyes to see what is before me.

Someone points out a church with a gleaming golden dome and asks whether we'll visit it. “The Church of Mary Magdalene, Russian Orthodox,” Stephen says. “It was built in 1888. Quite recent, really.” Back in the United States, the brick sanctuary in which I preach is 160 years old, and we fall all over ourselves calling it historic. To me it seems ancient. The furnace is ancient, anyway, and the roof —

Four o'clock. A Muslim call to prayer peals from the minarets. The recorded sound is insistent, piercing the Holy City.

Saint George's Campus, Jerusalem

CHAPTER 4

Six Degrees

They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

H
EBREWS 11:13-14

B
ACK AT THE
college, people head to their rooms for a rest. Mentally exhausted but physically restless, I wander into the small garden on the grounds. I recognize the head housekeeper, Khalil, a man in his fifties, and introduce myself and shake his hand.

“Are there any olive trees around here?” I ask.

Khalil stifles a smile. “No. But do you like fig trees?” He walks me through a maze of pathways. There are three different species of fig trees in the garden, and he insists on locating them all.

“What are those?” I point to a fist-sized fruit hanging from a branch.

Khalil plucks the yellow globe and hands it to me. “Pomegranate.”

Of course! I want to say that I would have recognized the fruit better in its natural environment — grocery store bins — but doubt the joke would translate. I turn the pomegranate in my hands, realizing that I've only consumed this fruit as juice. How do I open it? It's one more thing I don't know about this land. Not-knowing is what makes me a pilgrim. No, that's not right. Admitting that I'm not-knowing is what makes me a pilgrim.

Khalil gestures for me to follow him. We tuck around the side of the dormitory and he holds aside a low-hanging branch to allow me to pass. Underneath a canopy of trees are two kitchen chairs with ripped vinyl seats. Between them is a rickety table holding a full ashtray. He offers me a seat, which I accept, and a cigarette, which I decline. I roll the smooth pomegranate between my palms. Khalil puts down his cigarette, pulls out a pocketknife, and deftly slices the fruit open. Like a patient uncle, he pantomimes how I should scoop the seeds.

Our cast-off chairs are on the edge of Saint George's property, inside a cast-iron fence. We sit two feet higher than the sidewalk, behind a screen of trees. We can watch passersby, but they aren't likely to notice us.

“Do you live nearby?” I ask.

“My family lives in Bethany. You Christians know it. You know Mary and Martha and Lazarus.”

The pomegranate seeds are messy and pungent. Scooping them feels awkward, but I like crushing them between my teeth. “Have you lived there all your life?” I ask.

“For eight generations,” he says.

I can't help but stare as Khalil blows a long stream of smoke. I have no idea what it's like to be so connected to a particular place. My family has been in America for a mere three generations, and I could not tell you, without looking it up first, which cities in the Netherlands they originate from. I personally have lived in eight states, at more addresses than I can remember. As the smoke disappears, Khalil speaks into the air. “Bethany means ‘house.' My house.”

Armed men appear on the sidewalk below us. I let the tart seeds mash between my teeth. The silence stretches. I reach for a standard getting-acquainted question from my part of the world: “Is Bethany to Jerusalem a long commute?”

“Commute?”

“A distance to travel to work every day.”

Khalil closes his eyes. “My family lives in Bethany. But I don't always go home.”

“Why?” I ask, knowing it sounds naïve.

His eyes close again, as if to shut out the question. “Because of the Wall.”

My knowledge of Middle East politics had been embarrassingly sketchy before this pilgrimage, so I had done some reading to catch up. I read about 1948 and the U.N. Resolution that made Israel a sovereign nation; about the Six-Day War in 1967, which changed boundaries; about the Oslo Peace process; and the Camp David Accords. I read about the wall that Israel is building around the Occupied Territories. Now I worry about how to phrase a question. Finally I just ask, “Isn't there a place to get through?”

Khalil talks rapidly now — about checkpoints and work permits and how they expire and how he has to go around. I'm confused. He has a good job, and what does “go around” mean? But he is talking about a different subject now — about the wedding they're planning for his daughter next year. His smile is big and open. It will be a three-day celebration, and all of Bethany will come.

“You and your family are invited, too,” he says, expansively.

I imagine the scene, the flute music, the tables of food, skirts lifting as women dance.

Khalil interrupts my daydream with a question. “Why did you come to Jerusalem?”

“I've always wanted to come here,” I say, although it isn't exactly true. I used to be scared of coming here, of the heat and dust and threat of violence. I amend my answer: “I had the opportunity to come, and I didn't want to miss it.”

“You flew here on a plane?” I nod.

“Without your husband?” I nod again.

“But you have a husband.” He barely waits for the nod before he continues. “Then why did he not come with you?”

“Because of his job. He's a teacher. September is busy. And it costs a lot to travel. This opportunity was just for me, because I'm a minister.”

“You are a minister? A religious leader?”

“Yes,” I say.

“You lead the prayers?”

An old, feminist instinct flares up inside me. “I lead the prayers. I preach from the Bible. I visit people in the hospital. Everything.”

“And your husband permits this?”

I try to tamp down my anger. We come from different worlds. How could I describe mine to him? Can I tell him how I've been wounded because I'm a woman, and how those wounds can still ache? How in the conservative church where I grew up, women were not allowed to be ordained to the ministry, and the denomination fought over “the woman problem”? How the life I live now was unimaginable to my childhood self? How I had to leave behind and start again, which wasn't easy? How I had to shake off certain beliefs and expectations and adopt others? I can barely explain that journey to my relatives. How can I explain it to a Muslim man whose family has been in Bethany for eight generations?

“My husband understands,” I say.

Khalil seems to relax. He asks, “Do you have children?”

“Two daughters.” I feel absurdly proud as I say it, feeling the urge to add that they're beautiful (as if that is the most important adjective!).

“Who's taking care of them?”

“Well, one's in college, and the other one is home with her dad.”

“Her dad?” Khalil sounds puzzled.

“Her father.”

“Don't you have a mother? Or sisters? Why is the father caring for children?” His words hang in the air like judgment.

“My sisters live far away,” I say. It's easier than explaining that my husband is fully capable of caring for our daughter.

“And your mother — she is old?”

I take the easy way out and nod in agreement, silently begging forgiveness from my mother, who is a young seventy-seven.